


Alignment

by HissHex



Series: NaNoWriMo 2020 - A TMA Collection [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: COVID Lockdown, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, in the background of his video call, softer than my tags make it sound, that one ass who has a bookcase of books hes never read, threatened violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 10:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27349864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HissHex/pseuds/HissHex
Summary: Elias and Peter might be terrible but at least they have each other, whether they like it or not.An examination of Elias' valiant attempt to organise a bookshelf while Peter is high off all the lonely energy.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard | Jonah Magnus/Peter Lukas
Series: NaNoWriMo 2020 - A TMA Collection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995427
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	Alignment

The Pandemic was fun for no-one.  


Well.  
  
Almost no-one.  
  
Elias was having a terrible time of it. 

Sure he could watch his employees from the comfort of his bed, but it didn’t instill quite the level of fear that stalking along the Institute’s corridors did. The Institute radiated such an aura of paranoia and of being watched that Elias barely had to do anything to wind everyone up into a state. 

It was distinctly more difficult when everyone was cuddled up at home in their PJs. It was not a state of being that naturally nurtured any type of fear.  
  
Those of the Corruption were doing well no doubt and…  
  
He felt a chill come in from the Kitchen.  
  
Peter.  
  
His  _beloved husband_ had been doing his very best to be even more irritating than he usually was.  Because if there was one fear that was doing as well as the Corruption right now, It was the Lonely.

Elias sorted through the collection of books on his desk, he had gotten bored and heard about the concept of doing video meetings. It sounded like an excellent idea, he just needed to make sure his background bookcase was perfect. 

He wondered if he could sneak a Leitner in the back, no one would notice. He resolved to look through his collection later. 

Reaching over for a thick poetry anthology that he could kill a man with, he felt only the faint chill of condensation on the wood of the desk. 

“Peter!”

Deafening Silence. 

Grumbling about idiot sailors who couldn’t mind their own business (perfectly aware of his own hypocrisy), he wedged two thinner classic fiction novels into the space. It didn’t fit perfectly into the space he had made and he took a deep breath as he felt his eyebrow twitch.  
  


The next three hours of careful book and decoration placement was intermittently plagued by Peter popping in purely to take items or to shuffle then books he had already put in the bookcase. 

Elias was mere moments away from grabbing a wine bottle from the kitchen, hunting Peter down and smashing it over his thick skull.  
  
Elias took a moment to shoot off an email  condemning the lockdown to every politician he had contacts with. He had been immune to becoming ill for centuries, only the most powerful of the Corruption’s Avatars were capable of affecting him. The only reason he was going along with it all is that he didn’t need the negative attention. Well, that, and the last thing he needed was his budding Archivist falling to an illness that would only serve to mark him for a fear Elias had already dealt with. He hated it though, everyone stuck inside. No one was watching, no one was being watched. 

How was a man supposed to feed in these conditions?

Anyway, Peter was only being such a prat because he was giddy on the metaphorical buffet table of fear that was being generated. He was overfeeding and even worse, he was making it Elias’ problem. He had suggested a few days back that perhaps Peter might prefer to spend lockdown in Moorland House which Peter didn’t deign with a reaction other than to laugh like Elias had made a particularly good joke and put his (somehow muddy? Even though they  hadn't left the apartment?) boots up on the table. 

  
He felt a cool brush against his back as he started to make notes on the  meeting with his head of departments he was planning later. He was sure he could wind most of them up into a frothing panic with just a few innocuous mentions of things they had been doing while at home. His grip on the pen tightened and in a moment of incalculable rage he swung his fist around, aiming to shove the rather expensive pen straight though Peter’s gullet. 

He had already vanished by the time Elias’s fist hit the book case. Elias swore but was secretly glad it hadn’t hit, it would have ruined the pen and it had been one of Peter’s gifts to him for their third wedding. 

He sighed and let the pen tumble out of his hand, back onto the table, as he closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of his chair. Giving himself a minute to remember that, despite everything, he did love Peter.

And also they had only got re-married two months ago and Simon’s mocking questions as to whether he should keep the suit for the next wedding were becoming grating. 

Another brush of cool, damp air across his shoulders before a slightly warmer pair of lips pressed to his forehead, the familiar scratch of Peter’s beard against his face. He opened his eyes to look up into the cold blue eyes of his favourite Lukas. 

He looked unbearably smug though there was a rare glimmer of affection in the curl of his wry grin. 

“I have had the dubious pleasure of knowing almost every member of the Lukas dynasty for the past 200 years Peter and yet you might be the first one who drives me to murder. Do you not have anything better to do than annoy me?”

“Oh definitely not Elias! Can I not spend some quality time with my dear husband who I love very much? I have seen all these messages about ensuring your loved ones don't become Lonely with the current climate and I would hate for that to happen to you.” 

Peter had always been good at squeezing as much  insincerity into each and every word he said but he was really ramping it up. Elias’s glanced briefly at the pen and felt cool hands grasp his own. 

Damn. 

“You know what would make me very lonely Peter? If my darling husband died from an unfortunate case of rat poison in his scotch and left me a widow.”

The bastard just laughed, pressing another kiss, this time to his cheek.  


Joy was a good look oh his Captain’s face. Fake joviality was Peter’s speciality, but this honest excitement of this mass feeding made him look younger. He looked handsome. 

Sighing, Elias shifted his wrist out of Peter’s grip and reached up to pull him down into a proper kiss. His grip slipped as Peter vanished back into his Domain. 

Elias stood up, turning to the kitchen for a bracing glass of wine before his call, when he caught sight of the bookcase. 

Peter hadn’t wrecked it, like he might have worried. But where he had placed one of his more colourful “vases”, a beautiful bottled ship sat instead. A perfect model replica of the ship that his dear Mordechai had owned. He sighed again, this time tinged with affection rather than exasperation. 

“Oh Peter”


End file.
